


Just Like Old Times

by Raquelle31



Category: Captain Marvel (2019), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: '80s music, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Lost In The Wild, Some bullying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:55:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21784063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raquelle31/pseuds/Raquelle31
Summary: A field training exercise goes wrong and turns into a fight for survival for recruits Maria Rambeau and Carol Danvers. To make it, they'll need strength, determination, and most importantly, each other.
Relationships: Carol Danvers/Maria Rambeau
Comments: 8
Kudos: 20
Collections: Marvel Reverse Big Bang 2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to beta multifandomfics and the artist mferret9 who created such an inspiring art. A  
> special thanks to the Marvel RBB Mods for creating this awesome opportunity for fans to connect.  
> You guys rock! ^__^

**Chapter 1**

_1985_

  
Carol was not going to give up. Her eyes stung from the dust. Dried blood on her left cheek. Her face and body were covered in mud but she was not going to call it quits. She tried to crawl out of the net but she was stuck. Filled with determination, she put all of her strength in one last push forward. To no avail.

  
The whistle blows.

  
“Times up!” Screams drill sergeant “no mercy” Johnson.

  
“To all of you who didn’t complete this obstacle course, I suggest you train double this week to be ready for Friday’s test, which won’t be as easy.”

  
As the other recruits manage to get out from under the net, Carol struggles. She is stuck.

  
“Look at Danvers, struggling like a whale,” says a tall man sporting a blond flat top. “She can’t even get herself out,” he smirks.

  
“I so hope I don’t get stuck with her Friday” says another man, loud enough for her to hear.

  
Determined to get out, Carol pushes some more but doesn’t manage to free herself.

  
“Here, let me help you,” says Maria, the only other girl in the program, as she extends a helping hand to Carol.

  
Carol had noticed her back in basic but they hung out with different people and never had the chance to talk to each other. If she’s made it here, in the survival program, Carol thinks, that means she too has been accepted to pilot school. Carol takes her hand, and Maria pulls her out from under the net.

  
“My backpack got stuck in the net,” says Carol, sheepishly.

  
“Rookie mistake. The trick is the put your bag in front of you before you tackle the net.”

  
“Yeah, I forgot,” she says.

Maria looks at her with a sweet smile. Her gorgeous brown eyes sparkle.

  
“I’m Maria by the way.”

  
“Yeah, I know... I mean, I’m Carol.”

  
“Hey Maria! You’re coming or what?” calls out a tall dark man, another recruit, wearing a stern expression.

  
Maria turns to the man and yells, “Just a minute, Daryl!” Then she turns back to Carol. “See you around, Carol.” Before joining the man and their group of friends.

“Are you OK?” Asks a brown-eyed guy with concern in his voice.

  
“Hey James!” She answers as she dusts herself off, “just a few scrapes.”

  
He gives her a worried look. “A few scrapes you say? That bruise on your cheek does not look good. How about you stop by the infirmary, and we’ll meet up later in the cafeteria? Don’t want your face turning blue or something,” he says laughing.

  
Later, at the cafeteria. A bandaged Carol spots James and makes her way towards him when a tall man—the same who insulted her earlier—purposely bumps into her.

  
“Watch where you’re going Danvers!” he says menacing.

  
“Sorry, Jeff. I guess even a whale is difficult to spot for an obtuse fish.”

  
“Are you insulting me?” he claps back. He gets closer to her.

  
James quickly jumps in, and laughs to defuse the situation. He says to Jeff, “She was just joking. You’re a big man. You get jokes, right?”

  
Jeff looks at him with daggers in his eyes, then turns to Carol.

  
“Just so you know, you’re just tolerated.” Then adds, “I’m so looking forward to Friday’s test so you can be weeded out.” He leaves with his friends.

  
James regains his table. Carol follows him and sits in the seat opposite him.

  
He looks at her “You know, Carol, you shouldn’t provoke him.”

“He doesn’t scare me.” She retorts.

  
“Yeah, I know. And _that’s_ what scares me. I won’t always be around to have your back, you’ve got to try to fit in more...”

  
He continues talking, but Carol stopped listening. From her seat, she could see Maria laughing with the guy from earlier, Daryl, and several of their friends.

  
“Earth to Carol! Are you still with me?”

  
“Oh, sorry James. You were saying?”

  
“You got to show up, and work hard. That’s how you carve a place for yourself.”

He follows her gaze, and sees her looking at Maria. He gets up from his seat, gets right next to her and whispers in her ear:

  
“Take my advice. You don’t need any distractions. Training his hard enough. You need to be in this 100%.”

She turns to look at him.

He continues, “You know, they’re not going to give you any free pass. Some will even try to make your life harder, like dickhead-Jeff, so be focused,” he  
reiterates before regaining his seat, “Besides, she’s already with Daryl.”

  
_The night before the test_

  
Carol, who is wearing a _Goonies_ t-shirt and Adidas blue shorts, is working out in the gym. She sees a guy, built like a linebacker, picking up his duffle bag. He waves at her as he leaves. She waves back. They never speak, but after hours, at the base, it’s always the two of them pumping iron until lights out. She gets up to pick up heavier dumbbells. As she goes back to her bench, she changes the side of her cassette tape and presses “Play”. Fast-pace music blasts in her ears  
as she continues her workout.

  
“I can do it!” “I’ve got what it takes!” she tells herself, as she starts her biceps curls.

  
Lost in her thoughts, Carol doesn’t notice the man approaching her. He gently touches her shoulder to get her attention. She flinches and drops her weight on his foot. James yells.

  
“Sorry!” she tries to apologize while failing to stop herself from laughing. “Why did you surprise me like that?”

  
“Man, that hurt!” says the man as he moves his foot trying to shake the pain away. 

  
“You’ve been working out late every night this week and I thought I’d come in to remind you to take it easy. No use overworking yourself.”

  
Carol picks up the dumbbell and continues her workout as she says, looking straight ahead:

  
“Tomorrow’s an important test. I want to show the sergeant that I’ve got what it takes to make it all the way.”

  
“I get it, tomorrow is important. But remember that your body needs to rest too. You don’t want all your hard work to go to waste because you’re too tired to do the test.”

  
She turns to look at him, and gives him a reassuring smile.

  
“I’m almost done. Just 10 minutes left. You’re welcome to join me.” She says pointing to the rack of dumbbells.

  
He shakes his head. “Thanks, but I’ll go back to try to find out as much as I can about that test.”

  
She laughs. “It could be anything. No one knows. That’s what makes it so challenging!”

  
He shrugs. “Well, rumor has it it’s another mud race but blindfolded and we’ll have to walk on fire, and...”

  
“You’ve watched too many movies!”

  
He laughs. “Just you wait, Carol! You’ll see that I’m right, and you’ll wish that you’d watched those movies with me.” They both laugh.

He starts leaving. “Well, see you Carol.”

  
She smiles and waves him goodbye.

  
As James leaves the building, he notices Jeff and a couple of his friends walking towards the offices. They don’t see him.

“What are they doing here?” he wonders. “No one’s supposed to go there after hours.”

  
In the gym, Carol is about to continue her work out, when she senses somebody watching her. She looks up and sees Maria who motions her over. She gets up and joins her.

  
“Hey, Maria. What are you doing here? The gym’s about to close.”

  
Maria makes a sign to be silent and whispers, “Follow me.”

  
They make their way to a prohibited area. There, Maria forces open a door to a room and walks in followed by Carol. Maria looks at different volumes on a bookshelf, and retrieves an encyclopedia.

  
“Maria, what are we doing here?”

  
“I want to show you something.”

  
She opens the book to a black and white picture of a woman pilot. 

“That’s Bessie Coleman,” she says with a hint of pride, “The first woman of African Descent to hold a pilot’s license.”

She continues still looking at the picture: “My mom used to talk to me about her when I was a little girl, she’d say ‘Sweet,’ that’s how she called me, ‘you can be anything you want to be.’ Ever since then, I’d dream about becoming a pilot.”

  
Then, she looked straight into Carol’s eyes.

  
“We need to pass that test tomorrow. So I can move on to pilot school and reach my dream.”

  
Carol looks at her with a puzzled expression. “What makes you think we’ll be paired? The pairing is supposed to be random.”

  
“Girl, please,” she answers unimpressed. “I’m sure they’ll ‘randomly’ put the only two girls of the program together.”

  
“Well, if that’s the case, you’re in luck. I’ve been working my butt off, we’ll show these boys how it’s done,” she smirks.

  
As they make their way back down the main corridor, they spot Jeff and his friends walking on the opposite direction. As Jeff passes them, he bumps Carol hard enough that she falls on the floor.

  
“I thought I told you to watch where you are going Danvers!”

Carol gets up quickly, ready to take him on. Maria gets between the two of them. Carol gives him a menacing look.

  
Jeff’s friend intervenes. “Hey, man. Keep your cool,” he says, and whispers to him something that the two girls couldn’t hear.

  
Jeff regains his composure.

“Sorry, Danvers. Didn’t see you there. Good luck on the test tomorrow,” he says with a forced smile before leaving with his friends.

Carol and Maria exchange a puzzled look.

  
“I wonder what he’s up to?” Carol says.

  
“Well, we’re not going to find out tonight. Let’s get back to our quarters.” They leave.

  
_The next morning_

  
Outside the barracks, on a bright and sunny day, the recruits stand in line and listen to the drill sergeant.

  
“I don’t need to remind you that today is a pass or a fail. Some of you will go on to a brilliant career in the military, while others will fall to their plan B.”

  
He walks from one end of the line to the other, and continues his speech.

“Today’s field training exercise will leverage many abilities you’ve learned last year, during your basic training, such as reading a map, using a compass and finding your way. You will be driven to an undisclosed location. There, your skills will be put to the test as you will try to find your way back here using a simple map and a compass. We expect most of you to make it before night fall. The last team to make it back will fail and will have to reapply to theprogram next year. Here are the pairings:  
Adams, you’re with Smith. Brown, you’re with Wilson. Danvers, you’re with Rambeau...”

  
Carol and Maria exchange a knowing look.

  
The recruits are blindfolded once and twice and are led on an open-top vehicle to a far-off place. The tension grows more and more as each team is led off the vehicle at a different location. Finally, Maria and Carol are escorted off the vehicle. An officer removes their blindfolds and hands them a map, a compass and two backpacks supposed to contain all necessary items.

The officer continues, telling them. “If you want to make sure to stay in the program, I recommend you complete your challenge by nightfall. Good luck!”

  
He gets back in the vehicle and drives away leaving Maria and Carol to their fate.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

  
On the dry terrain, under a hot and blazing sun, the two women wearing sun hats and sunglasses are making good progress following the map, and running north with the help of the compass. Even though, watches weren’t allowed for the test, they know they are making good time speeding across the rocky landscape, only stopping minimal times, as they desperately want to make it back to the base before sundown. As they stop to take a quick break and drink some water, Maria’s brows furrow. She looks at the map, then straight ahead, and then again at the map, looking confused.

  
“That’s weird…”

  
“What is?” Carol asks.

  
“Look!” She hands the map over to Carol. “This small mountain we’re running towards isn’t on the map! We’ve been going the wrong way” Maria adds, frustrated.

  
“Not necessarily,” offers Carol. “Maybe that’s part of the test, maybe they didn’t put it on the map to throw us off,” she says, taking out the compass from her pocket, “Besides, we kept going north. See?”

  
She hands the compass over to Maria, who looks at it, then looks at the setting Sun, then looks at Carol who realizes with horror that it shows the Sun setting down east instead of west.

  
“Oh no! There’s something wrong with the compass!” She says, alarmed, “And now, there is no way to go  
back to base before sundown.”

  
“Think that was also part of the test?” asks Maria with a bit of bitterness. “How could we have been so stupid!” she says angrily as she throws the compass on the ground.

  
“Calm down Maria, there was no way of knowing they’d give us a wrong compass.”

  
“We should have paid more attention to the position of the sun or double-checked our way with the shadow stick method or something. We should have been smarter,” she adds defeated.

  
She sits down and buries her face in her hands.

  
Carol sits next to her. “Yeah, we screwed up.”

  
The two women stay a few minutes in silence before Carol says:

  
“It’s getting dark and it’s getting cold. We better find a place to spend the night.”

She looks around her at the desert surroundings, no safe place to put their heads down. Maria lifts up her head revealing puffy eyes.

She says, “If we continue to the mountain, which looks about an hour away, we could find a platform to spend the night on, and go up in the morning to have a better view of our surroundings. We could find a short cut to get back.” Then she adds with a glimmer of hope, “And who knows, maybe we won’t be the last team to arrive after all!” She smiles at Carol who smiles back at her.

  
“That’s the spirit!” “I bet that if we speed up, we can get to that mountain in half that time!”

  
“Race you there!”

After running for a long time, the young women stop before a large plain leading straight to the mountain.

  
“What is it Maria?”

  
“Doesn’t the ground here look a little lower, like it’s sinking or something?” She asks apprehensive.

  
“It’s dark now, so it’s hard to say. Do you want us to find another way to the base of the mountain?”

  
“Nah,” she shakes her head. “It’s probably nothing.”

Barely had they started walking on the plain that the ground opens up under Maria’s feet, she screams.

  
Carol manages to catch her, before the sinkhole gets bigger and swallows both of them.

  
They fall about 30 feet into a subterranean stream. Luckily, they manage to swim to dry land despite their heavy bags.

  
Panting, they sit down wet, and exhausted. Carol looks up. She can see the starry sky through the hole from which they fell.

She sighs. “Now we’re really screwed. There’s no way we can go back up.”

  
Maria opens her backpack, “I have some rope in my bag, but I don’t think that’ll be enough.”

  
“Even if we managed to get back up there, what is to say that we wouldn’t fall in another hole?”

  
Hungry and tired, Maria reaches in her bag and gets out two protein bars.

  
“Let’s rest a little, and eat a little. Then we’ll start looking for a passage.” She shivers. “We will also need to find a place to dry our clothes and build a fire so we don’t freeze to death. Here!” she says as she hands Carol a bar.

  
“Thanks, but I’ll eat it later. I can’t eat anything when I’m stressed.”

Carol opens her backpack and searches through it: there’s a wet blanket, a first aid kit, an army knife, four metal water bottles (two empty), and some  
wet matches.

  
“Hey Maria, do you have any flashlights? I don’t have any in my bag.”

  
Maria searches in her bag and finds a flashlight. “Here you go!”

  
Carol turns on the light and takes in their surroundings. Around them only rocks and the water. Then, Carol spots a small opening.

  
“Look Maria! Hopefully, this opening will lead us back up.”

  
Maria finishes her bar and gets to her feet. “Let’s go!”

  
The women walk along a narrow ledge until they find the small opening.

  
“It looked bigger back there,” comments Maria.

  
“We’ll have to go in one at a time,” Carol says as she starts getting in the passage.

  
Maria stops her. “We’d better remove our backpacks so we don’t get stuck.”

  
“Oh yeah, right!”

  
Carol puts her bag in front of her and enters the narrow tunnel. Maria follows her. They crawl up the unobstructed tunnel for what feels like ages before they reach a bigger gallery. There, they get out of the tunnel and start walking up right using the flashlight to light their way.

After walking for a while, Maria grabs Carol’s hand and whispers to her to stop moving.

  
“Listen!”

  
In the cave, distant sounds are coming closer. Carol points her flashlight in the direction the sounds are coming from. The light catches glimpses of movement as the women register the sounds to actually be growls.

  
The pair freak out and run for their lives, chased by countless “beasts”. The flashlight in hand, Carol desperately searches for an exit, but can’t find any.

The passage ends in a dead end. The young women are mortified as they hear the wolves gain on them.

  
“Maria? Any chance there’s a grappling hook with your rope?”

  
Maria gets the hook out of her bag and throws it as high as she can.

  
“It caught something! “

  
Maria hurries up the rope followed by Carol, who barely makes it on the rope before a wolf bites her backpack and hangs on to it. As she struggles to get her bag off and climb the rope, she drops her flashlight and everything goes black.

_Much later_

  
The women are still hanging on the side of the rocky wall, holding on to the rope for dear life. The wolves have long since gone, but the pair hesitates to move despite their hands hurting like crazy. Finally, Maria breaks the silence.

  
“Carol?”

  
“Yeah?”

  
“I see some light above. We need to continue climbing.”

  
The women continue climbing to the top of the rock. They scan their surroundings. At the other end, there is an opening to the outside. The young women realize that this whole time they were going up the mountain from the inside.

  
Exhausted but relieved, they walk towards the outside.

  
Suddenly, a colony of bats fly above their head and out of the cavern. One of them touches Carol’s hair. She screams frantically.

  
“Get it off me!” “Get it off me!”

  
“It’s gone!” Maria tells her, but Carol doesn’t seem to hear her. So Maria puts her hands on Carol’s shoulders to calm her.

  
“It’s gone! You’re fine!” she adds trying not to laugh at her friend’s reaction.

  
Carol stops squirming, looks at Maria’s face, and bursts into laughter.

  
Both women laugh uncontrollably as they make their way outside, on a rocky platform, on the slope of the  
mountain.

  
The pair breaths in the cool night air, and allows themselves to take in their surroundings for a moment. From their vantage point, they can see a forest.

  
Maria takes out the compass “It shows north, so it means it’s really south.”

  
“We’ve come a long way… We may not have passed the exam, but at least we’re not dead!”

  
“Don’t be so quick to rejoice. We’re not out of the woods yet. Tomorrow morning, we’ll make a plan to get back, but for now, let’s build a fire so we don’t freeze to death.”

  
Maria gathers shrubs, leaves and small branches as Carol picks up some rocks to contain the fire.

  
“The matches were in my bag,” laments Carol. “Do you remember how to make a fire without them?”

  
Maria removes a lighter from her bra and hands it over to Carol. “Here,” she says casually.

Carol gives her a questioning look.

  
“I also have some cigarettes. Quitting is not that easy,” she explains.

  
Carol takes the lighter and starts a fire. They stay still a moment, letting the fire warm them up.

  
“So,” Carol asks, “Besides Coleman, why do you want to be a pilot?”

  
“To prove that I can. The service, the discipline, the team work… Those are all things that spoke to me. I was hesitant about enlisting, but when Daryl told me he was joining, I thought we’d go to training together and look out for one another.”

  
“Daryl, your boyfriend?”

  
“Daryl, my ex-boyfriend,” she rectifies. Carol can’t help but feel a bit of joy at hearing that.

  
Maria continues, “I want to see how far I can go. Also, honestly, there’s so much crap going on down here that I imagine going up there would feel like freedom.”

  
“I hear you!” They laugh.

  
“How about you, Carol? What made you want to be a pilot?”

  
“It seemed like the most difficult job I could find,” she pauses. “Well, that and becoming an astronaut. Which I’ll do later on.”

  
“Ambitious, I see. I knew I liked you.”

  
“Growing up, I was kind of a tomboy and people back home didn’t like it very much. They’d always try to put me in a box, telling me what I can and cannot do. They only valued physical strength, but every time I’d try to show them what I could do, they’d say that I’m just a girl, and that I need to step aside and go back to the kitchen where I belong. It used to enrage me!” Her stomach growls. “Oh no, kitchen … food… I’m so hungry! Do we have any food left?”

  
“Let me see.” Maria looks through the content of her bag. “OK. So we have two energy bars left, three apples, two squashed bananas and some almonds and raisins.”

  
“How about we eat half and leave the rest for tomorrow?”

  
Maria nods. “Let the feast begin!”

  
The women eat and drink with a heavy heart.

  
“On average, the human body can survive about three weeks without food, three days without water and three minutes without air,” says Maria, “Even if we ration the little water we have left, I don’t think it will be enough to trek back to base,” she sighs.

  
Carol puts her hand on Maria’s shoulder to comfort her. “That’s tomorrow’s problem. Besides, maybe we’ll be lucky and it will rain. Let’s rest now.”

  
They lie down on their backs, next to each other, sharing the remaining backpack as a pillow, and looking up at the stars.

  
Too anxious, Carol can't sleep.

  
“Maria?”

  
“Hmm?” she answers with a sleepy voice.

  
“When did you start smoking?”

“My ex used to smoke, so I just picked it up.”

  
“Daryl smokes?”

  
“No, Ashley.”

  
After a moment Carol asks.

  
“Ashley? That’s kind of an odd name for a guy. I know that in the past it was _technically_ a guy’s name but I only see women with that name now.”

  
“Well, my ex was a girl, Ashley.”

  
Carol goes quiet again. She can’t help but be glad to hear that, like her, Maria is into girls. And maybe, she could be into this particular girl. Something inside of her warm up despite the cold and the hunger.

  
Maria turns her face to look at Carol “You’re awfully quiet,” she reproaches. “I hope what I just revealed to you doesn’t change what you think of me.”

  
Carol turns to face her. “Not really. I always knew you were awesome,” she grins.

  
Maria smiles. They sleep facing each other.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to mferret9 for creating such beautiful art! ^__^

**Chapter 3**

_1995_

In an empty bar, Carol, who’s wearing a simple white t-shirt with black jeans, and Maria, wearing a dark red t-shirt with blue jeans, are sitting opposite each other at a table.

“That was so embarrassing. I wanted to die!” recalls Maria.

“And we almost did of hypothermia and dehydration,” Carol laughs.

“Yes, but being woken up by the sergeant like that, I was thinking, ‘Just kill me now!’ I can still hear his voice in the megaphone ‘Girls, stay where you are! We’re coming to get you!’”

“Who knew that the sergeant ‘no mercy’ was such a mama hen?”

They laugh again, then Carol gets serious. “Got to tell you though, I honestly didn’t think we would make it.”

“Me neither, I was already imagining my mom reading the letter informing her that her sweet girl was eaten by a pack of wolves ‘All that is left of her are two cigarettes, even the wolves knew they weren’t good for them.’" They both laugh.

Carol was thrilled. Despite all the years that separated them, Maria and her still had this amazing connection. She looks around the room. So many memories! There, she and Maria used to sing karaoke. There, they played beer pong with the rest of their friends, and there, on the dance floor… Well, to the wild rhythms of the ’80s, they danced the night away. They were young, stubborn and free. The world belonged to them, and it was there, on this dance floor that one evening: magic. Maria and Carol had found the closeness that united them as friends. But could they find something else again? Carol wanted so much to believe it. And seeing Maria laughing like that, well, it made her believe that anything was possible.

“That was quite the search party they had for us, she says, how did they manage to find us again?”

“It was the fire we built! Maria answers enthusiastically as she remembers the details. The forest guard reported seeing it!”

“Ah! yes… Boy, were we lucky! They found us just a few hours after we fell asleep.”

“Oh angels were definitely looking over us. Good thing it was your bag that was lost and not mine, which had the fake map and the bad compass.”

“I still can’t believe he’d put our lives in jeopardy like that. I knew he hated me, but to do that to you too…”

“You’re not the only one he hated. Some people are messed up like that. But, let’s not talk about his sorry ass. There must have been a reason why you wanted to meet up here at Pancho’s, and not just to rehash old memories.”

Carol looks down at her beer.

“In part. We had so many good memories here. And after the past six years, it’s nice to feel connected to something again,” she pauses, “To someone,” she adds looking at Maria with intensity.

Maria looks away, and shakes her head.

“It’s not like it was before, Carol. You are so different now, with your supercharged arms. You probably won’t be sticking around. We can’t just pick up where we left off.”

“That’s not what I am asking for.”

“Then what exactly are you asking for?”

Carol looks away. She recalls herself dancing with Maria on that memorable night when she was trying to muster the courage to kiss her.

“How about some music?”

She gets up and walks towards a brand new jukebox, Maria follows her.

“What happened to the old one?”

“Beats me,” says Carol who pretends not to know.

“What are you selecting?” Maria asks trying to look at the numbers Carol is punching in.

Carol playfully hides her selection with her hand. “You’ll see!” She grins.

Moments later, Annie Lennox’s voice resonates in the bar. Maria gives Carol a look.

"Of all the songs…"

_1985 At Pancho’s_

Recruits are celebrating passing the exam. Carol is sitting with James, Maria and Daryl. They’re laughing, eating nachos and drinking beer.

Daryl says, “And then, this big colossal man starts whining like a little kid: 'This can’t be happening again! I can’t lose any more recruits!' I tell ya, I would have been laughing if I wasn’t so scared for you girls!"

“Oh please! Daryl, you know me better than that,” says Maria boastfully. “I can survive anything, and my girl here is unstoppable!”

She finishes her beer, then looks straight at him.

“So how about two more beers for the survivors?”

“Coming right up!” laughs Daryl, as he gets up from his seat to get some more beer.

The radio plays Aretha Franklin’s Freeway of love. “I love that song!” says Maria. So does Carol, but she’s not sure about asking Maria to dance. No one else is dancing. What if she says no? As Carol is debating whether or not to ask Maria to dance, Jeff and two of his friends enter the bar. They spot Carol and walk straight to her table.

“Danvers! You little snitch!” He screams.

“Take a chill pill, Jeff!” says James. “What’s your beef?”

“Big mouth over there ratted on us!” Then he continues, glaring at Carol, “You told the sergeant that we sabotaged your exam. And because of you I’ve been kicked out of the military, so now you’re gonna pay!”

Before he can get any closer, James gets up, and gets right in Jeff’s face.

“I’m the one who snitched. I saw you roaming in the corridors after hours the night before the exam, so I simply reported what I saw. Now, if you left proof of your crime, he adds with a smirk, well that’s just negligence on your part.”

“You should have minded your own business, you nitwit!”

“BAM!” Jeff punches James right in the jaw. The two men start wrestling. One of Jeff’s friends holds James’s arms as Jeff gets ready to punch him when Carol kicks him right in the gut. He falls to the floor. Maria jumps in and punches Jeff’s other friend before he can intervene. They all get into a messy brawl.

After the fight Maria and Carol are back at the table with James and Daryl. James puts his cold beer to his jaw to ease the pain, Maria has a cut lip, Carol has a bruised cheek, and Daryl, well, the whole thing was over by the time he got back to the table: after Jeff got back up, Carol had given him such a punch that it knocked him out cold for a minute. His two friends had to carry him out the bar under the boos of the other recruits.

“We sure showed them!” says Maria with a satisfied expression.

Beer in hand, Daryl makes a toast: “To bad-ass women. Don’t mess with them!”

“Hear! Hear!” They all cheer.

Carol is thrilled. The school has given them a pass on the exam, and she got to show her bully what she was made of. Could this day get any better? Annie Lennox’s voice resonates in the bar. It’s Eurythmics’ song There must be an angel playing with my heart. Without overthinking it, Carol takes Maria’s hand and leads her to the dance floor. The two ladies have fun dancing and twirling to the rhythm of the music. As the song progresses, they get closer and closer to each other. Maria spins Carol who then spins her. They lip synch the words of the song as they bop to the music. Maria and Carol are so close that they can feel each other’s breath. Suddenly, everything seems to disappear around them. Carol looks into her friend’s deep brown eyes, then at her luscious lips and wonders if she should kiss her like she had thought of doing so many times. Maria beats her to it and plants a soft kiss on her. Surprised, Carol relaxes into the kiss. It tastes like nachos, beer and a little blood from the fight, still, it’s the best kiss she’s ever had.

_1995_

"Come on, let’s dance!" says Carol

She takes Maria’s hand and leads her to the dance floor. In the empty bar, they start dancing slowly to the music. They’re a bit stiff at first, but then they loosen up.

“So Maria, just like old times, right?”

“Hmm,” Maria answers pensively, “Not quite. It’s missing something…”

She gets closer to Carol, looks straight into her deep blue eyes and kisses her softly. The kiss leaves Carol feeling light-hearted, warm and giddy all at once. When Maria opens her eyes, she notices that she and Carol are levitating and are surrounded by beams of light. Delighted, Maria looks at Carol and says: “I always knew you were magic!”

As they go back to kissing passionately, Carol feels a greater sense of who she was and of whom she has become. When the time comes, she knows she will be strong enough to leave it all behind to fully embrace her destiny. But for now she is simply enjoying the moment, swaying to the music in the arms of her Maria.


End file.
